ISRAEL UNITED IN OPPOSITION TO ANY U.S. MOVE ON TALKS

Mark Lavie, Special to The TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Israel`s often-split bipartisan government is united against the idea that Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy, or any other U.S. official, might meet with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian peace-talks delegation before Israel does.

Murphy arrived in Amman, Jordan, Tuesday on the first leg of his latest Middle East trip. He is due here Friday. U.S. officials in Amman said Murphy had no meetings scheduled with Palestinians on this part of his trip.

But East Jerusalem newspaper editor Hana Signora and Gaza lawyer Fayez Abu Rahme crossed the Jordan River bridge to be in Amman at the same time as Murphy. The two are among seven people Jordan has suggested as possible Palestinian members of a joint delegation, and they are seen as the most acceptable of the seven.

Trying to reassure Israel in the wake of this apparent coincidence, the new American ambassador in Israel, Thomas Pickering, brought a message from Secretary of State George Shultz to Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Deputy Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, stating that U.S. conditions for sitting down with the Palestine Liberation Organization had not changed. The U.S. promised Israel in 1975 that it would not negotiate with the PLO unless the group recognized Israel`s right to exist and gave up the use of terror.

Pickering also repeated the U.S. pledge not to talk with a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation unless such a meeting would lead to direct talks between the delegation and Israel.

The responses of Shamir and Peres reflected Israel`s deep concern and suspicion about the whole process. Peres told Pickering that Israel objects to any Middle East negotiations that do not include Israel, and Shamir warned that such a meeting would not only harm the peace process but also might damage U.S.-Israeli relations.

''I am concerned about the very decision by the U.S. government to move in the direction of talking to a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation with the participation of the PLO,'' Shamir told Israel Television after meeting with Pickering.

Shamir noted that in the Camp David agreements of 1978, which led to Israel`s peace treaty with Egypt and were supposed to pave the way to a resolution of the West Bank issue, Israel agreed to negotiate with Jordan and acceptable Palestinians. ''At Camp David we talked of negotiations between Israel and the delegation, because peace talks must be conducted with them, not with the Americans,'' said Shamir, the leader of the right-wing Likud bloc.

Underlining Israel`s opposition, Shamir said that forbidding Signora and Abu Rahme to cross into Jordan while Murphy is there might have been a useful step.

Peres, the leader of the left-wing half of the bipartisan government, is no less adamant in his opposition to any preliminary meeting between U.S. officials and a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. In a weekend appearance, Peres noted that the PLO approved the Palestinian members on the list presented by Jordan, and he charged that all of the PLO`s efforts are directed toward the U.S., not toward peace with Israel.

As Murphy prepared for his talks in Amman, Peres had a late-night meeting with another Palestinian leader, former Gaza Mayor Rashad a-Shawwa. A-Shawwa has close ties to Jordan, and though he strongly backs the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel opposes, he has long been considered by some Israeli leaders as a possible Palestinian negotiator in peace talks. This is the latest in a series of meetings Peres has had with moderate Palestinians from the occupied territories.